In the spending bill that just passed the US Congress, the Republicans forced in a rider that sets a deadline of 60 days for Obama to make a decision about the Tar Sands XL pipeline. If Obama approves the pipeline it will be without a full environmental review of the pipeline’s path across the country, if he denies it there will be a terrible outcry from Canada and Republicans. Obama experiences backlash from the Republicans for just waking up in the morning, I wonder what his punishment from the Republicans would be for denying their climate-killing-pipeline project?

US energy policy needs to support sustainable levels of reliance on each resource we have. That doesn’t mean demonizing a resource, but it does mean greatly changing how we obtain and use energy. This all gets lost in politics but there is a sane, fact based energy policy out there, our politicians just need to support it.

If your not happy with how your fuel is brought to you, make your own.

Texas-based Pelican Refining Company is fined $12 million for violating the Clean Air Act and obstruction of justice charges for its activities in Louisiana. We should never take lightly an oil company’s ability to destroy the environment in which we build our homes, raise our families, and raise our crops.

Natural gas and fracking update:This article by the Wall St Journal is a great defense of natural gas fracking. I agree with it’s call for using calm judgement and relying on good science, but would probably disagree with the author about how much natural gas we should extract annually in the US.